Just like that, it was over. On September 1, 2004, the longest, most perplexing, most exasperating year of Kobe Bryant’s life was over. His sexual assault case was dismissed.

“First, I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year,” Pamela Mackey, Kobe Bryant’s attorney, read in a statement. “Although this year has been incredibly difficult for me personally, I can only imagine the pain she has had to endure.”

Everything began 14 months earlier. The Lakers were eliminated by the San Antonio Spurs, destroying Kobe and Shaq’s quest at a fourth consecutive title. Only days after the 2003 NBA Finals concluded, unbeknownst to Jerry Buss and Laker management, Bryant traveled to Eagle, Colorado, for an arthroscopic surgical procedure on his right knee at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic. A young woman, then-employed at the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle, accused the then-three time champion of sexual assault. The charge carried a maximum penalty of four years to life in prison, or 20 years to life on probation and a fine of $750,000.

Not to mention the life-long stain of the label of “sexual predator.”

For an entire year, Bryant traveled back and forth from courtroom to arena somehow attempting to forge the impossible balancing act of keeping his marriage afloat (starting with this press conference), securing a fourth title with a “super team” of himself, Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton and Karl Malone and focusing on an impending trial with accusations pressing harder than any full-court he had ever seen.

Perhaps the most indelible memory of Bryant that season – other than walking off the floor after Game 5 of the 2004 Finals – were the days when court appearances fell on game nights. Veteran SLAM writer, Bryan Crawford, saw the whirlwind as an escape. Even if “escaping” meant Kobe voluntarily throwing himself into a snake pit every night.

“I don’t know if he assaulted anybody, but he definitely cheated on his wife. So he had major troubles at home. On top of that, in every road arena the Lakers would visit, he’d be booed and called a rapist by fans. That whole incident changed him,” Crawford said. “He went from being a guy who wanted to be loved and revered like Michael Jordan, to someone who actually embraced being a villain.”

“I wasn’t so crazy as to call him a rapist because I believed in the court process, but I probably thought his going from courthouse to court was an arrogant way of handling it,” Harper said. “But the way he played on the court, it was unreal to see him do what he did with that kind of pressure. Even with the irrational hatred, I was still impressed by that focus.”

That “focus” was on display December 19, 2003, when Kobe – who came off the bench – mustered only 13 points, but nailed the two that mattered to win the game. That “focus” was later on display in the playoffs in Game 5 of the opening round series against the Rockets where Bryant amassed 36 points, six rebounds, 10 assists and three steals. Then, a round later in Game 4 against San Antonio with 42 points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals.* Five time the Lakers were dealt with the circus that arose with Kobe’s legal two-stepping. The Lakers went 5-0.

Such was the contrast for Kobe in 2003-2004. The highs were meteoric. The lows morphed Kobe into a social pariah, later brought forth by intimate details of the case emerging such as his infamous comments about Shaq paying women hush money. There was never much of an in-between.

“I’m not the one buying love,” O’Neal would later tell Stephen A. Smith.

The 2004 Finals were the climax in a very public ego power struggle years in the making. Kobe and Shaq, for much of the season, appeared how many said Jay Z and Beyonce looked on stage together for chunks of their On The Run tour: disinterested and together because paperwork required them to.

“If leaving the Lakers at the end of the season is what I decide, a major reason for that will be Shaq’s child-like selfishness and jealousy,” Kobe told Jim Gray prior to the start of the ’03-’04 season in the explosive Jim Gray interview that essentially became the nail in the coffin for the Shaq-Kobe era Lakers.

They never recovered. Shaq confirmed as much in his book, Shaq Uncut: My Story, and the games themselves spoke volumes. Re-watch that year’s Finals. On one hand, the Lakers get swept had it not been for a virtuoso performance from Bryant in Game 2. On the other, it’s Kobe – with who knows what on his mind from the case, his desire to be L.A.’s top dog or power struggles with Phil – shooting L.A. out of series, almost as to prove a sacrificial point of whose hands the present and future of L.A. basketball belonged to. Bryant played 18 more minutes, took 29 more shots and shot 25 percentage points lower than Shaq.

Nevertheless, Bryant re-signed with Los Angeles that summer and as the months passed by the case came unraveled similar to Kobe’s Lakers months earlier. Court documents were leaked to the media and the accuser’s name and sexual history were inadvertently released. The case became a circus act before ever going to trial. CNN’s legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, referred to the prosecution’s dismissing of the case “a disgrace.” Former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman was beyond critical of District Attorney Mark Hurlbert and the young woman. “The bottom line is that Mark Hurlbert allowed his office to be used as leverage for an attempt to get money,” he said. “What a massive waste of taxpayer money by the accuser.”

Judge Terry Ruckriegle apologized to the court for the elementary mistakes. Even the accuser’s high school classmates had spoken against her in support of Bryant’s story of the events. Lindsay McKinney, who lived with the accuser’s family in 2003, said, “I hope he doesn’t end up giving her any money.”

The charges against Kobe were dropped a week before the trial was to start. The case all but disappeared from mainstream conversation.

Kobe somehow won and lost all at once. He lost the Finals. He lost his coach in Phil Jackson, who had grown so tired of Bryant’s antics he attempted to trade him in 2004 (much like he did in 1999-2000 for Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion). He lost O’Neal, the Laverne to his Shirley (or in this case, the Martin to his Pam) in three consecutive titles. But he won his case. He won his freedom back. He won the right to a title he had so desperately coveted for years: “the guy” on the Lakers.

Getty Image

Heavy is the head who wears the crown, however. Kobe became the chief Alpha dog in Los Angeles on three consecutive teams that missed the playoffs altogether in 2005 and were defeated in the first round in 2006 and 2007 by Steve Nash and the Suns. 2006 included a 3-1 series meltdown and the notorious second half of Game 7 when Kobe refused to shoot in what appeared to be a silent protest for his “he-shoots-too-much” critics who bombed him after a 50-point Game 6 performance in which the Lakers still lost. Worst of all, the stain of his case loitered.

“I think there definitely is resentment lingering on some level. I don’t know if it’s at the forefront of everybody’s memory but it’s about halfway down the checklist of Internet arguments to make about Kobe Bryant when people come at you regarding him,” Harper said. “It usually doesn’t happen until someone is well out of argument about why Kobe is bad or an awful personality or whatever, but it still pops up.”

Sponsors eventually returned, who once wanted anything but an association with Bryant. As did some semblance of good grace. Phil Jackson eventually did, too. Winning two titles and a MVP of his own with Shaq migrating from city-to-city as the world’s largest nomad in the latter stages of his career helped partially alleviate the shadow of ” eternal sidekick.” And there’s always the sanctified number of “81.”

“People in general and sports fans in particular can be very forgiving. As long as Kobe helped the Lakers win, that’s all fans really cared about. Now you see people wearing his shoes on the street and around the league,” Crawford said. “You still have folks – including players at all levels – who say he’s their favorite player and a number of people will be sad to see him retire because he truly is cut from a different cloth.”

‘Cut from a different cloth.’ That’s one way of putting it. Still a premiere beloved and despised player in today’s league and social media world, the perception around Kobe has changed, even softened as Harper sees it. He’s still a jerk and self-proclaimed asshole who embraces the title of such. At 36, and in the twilight of a career that began the same year Bill Clinton was re-elected and Tupac was murdered, he’s by far the most popular player in China and one of Nike’s “big three” alongside LeBron James and, for now, Kevin Durant.

Biting his tongue is a foreign concept that oftentimes comes at the expensive of teammates (i.e. Smush Parker and later Dwight Howard). But now he’s now widely accepted as history’s finest shooting guard not named Michael Jordan, though his detractors would be quick to point out he’s never shot better than 47% for a season and a career Finals average of 41.7%.

Such is life under the umbrella of the game’s soon-to-be third all-time leading scorer.

“All of that stuff showed maturity in him as a person and he’s become a better personality in public as well. Kobe seems like a real adult person now and not some arrogant athlete,” Harper said. “I think we see him as confident over arrogant now as well, which is a key distinction with public opinion. And honestly, that’s how it should be.”

It’s how it should be. Not to go full-fledged Jason Whitlock, but if any career has mirrored The Wire’s Marlo Stanfield’s “You want it to be one way, but it’s the other way,” it’s Kobe.

For all any of us know, Kobe has two seasons left before he retires and does only God knows what. Two more seasons to put the longest and most gut-wrenching chapter of his career further and further behind him. Two more seasons to set records. Two more seasons to verbally accost teammates who fail to perform near his unequivocal expectations. Two more seasons, pending health remains in tact, to be the guy that has marveled and perturbed fans, regularly within the same game.

“Kobe Bryant is one of the baddest motherf*ckers to ever pick up a basketball and we may never see another player like him again,” Crawford said.

We might. We might not. The one truth undeniable about Kobe Bean Bryant, however, is this. His supporters have always loved him. He detractors have always despised him. Somewhere in the middle lies the most accurate description yet to be deciphered. But he has always, always, always given people the ability to form a passionate opinion about him either way.

Indifference never changed anything. Kobe Bryant is a lot of things. Indifferent isn’t one of them.

I always tell my gf the only time you’re going to see me cry is when Stevie Wonder passes and Kobe retires. She laughs but it’s true. He is my favorite player ever, knowing I won’t ever see that again will drain me emotionally.

On a side note, it is bananas the numbers we throw at young men for sexual assault, the way we blame the victim for even coming forward, and the fact that we don’t educate young people from a very early age what is and what isn’t ok.

@Athrin Zala I wouldn’t necessarily say old world myself… just the beginning of that new brand of basketball as AAU was creating monsters w/ huge egos at 17. Now every guard thinks it’s a one-on-one game.

I think the most interesting about Kobe will always be that personality shift that you stated in the article. 2001 Kobe who did McDonald’s and Coca Cola commercials while smiling and laughing while dunking on kids would never do the Kobe System commercials that were a huge hit a couple of years back. He became extremely jaded once the sponsors dropped him with the quickness, and Nike came in and won again while signing him for probably the (relative) low.

I respect Kobe as a player, but I will always hate him (sports hate), because he plays for the Lakers. How he is as a person, I can’t really judge since I don’t actually know him. From the stories and articles on him he seems like an asshole, but you read some of the stories depicting Jordan extreme competitiveness, he seems like an asshole too and I love Jordan.

The NBA is going to lose a great player when he retires! That’s all I got. Can’t bring myself to say anything nicer.

As a card carrying member of the Kobe hater club I had to put my hate down that yr cuz of that rape case. I loathe anyone who turns a consentual sexual encounter into a rape. It’s just sick, there are real rape victims out there and these ppl are making it harder for them to come forward or be taken seriously. Anytime a star rapes someone the victim will think ” don’t wanna look like a gold digger” and stay silent. This chicks name should’ve been dragged thru the mud even worse. And on top of that after the case was dismissed, the very first thing Kobe had to do was apologize to the liar??? Not his family not his friends not his teammates but to the “victim” who lied about the assault. That shit was disgusting. Ppl like her should be prosecuted if found that it was an extortion attempt and false claims.

I always loved reading beantown blogs where Celtics fans would shit on Kobe tirelessly on one post, then spend days confessing their respect and admiration for the hell he’s given them through the years. Many even echoed the same sentiments here about missing their favorite villain when he’s gone.

I was out visiting my family in LA and was the game when he had court in Eagle, Colorado during the day and then showed up at the Staples center that night to bury a game winner. The most monumental thing I have seen in person. I live in Denver and I’m a Lakers fan. During this whole case I felt like I was on trial, these people wanted him hanging from the rafters in the Pepsi Center and if you were a fan of his you belonged right there next to him for all they cared. I had shit thrown at me when I wore his jersey, going to the games the following seasons groups of Laker fans we’re basically escorted to and from their seats. This man was hated and people out here were not afraid to show it. Such a crazy event for him and for sports as a whole.

those shots verses the blazers are some of my favorite basketball moments ever. i remember i heard it on the radio before i saw it, i was stuck at work. kings had won a game and could have won the division if the lakers lost.

Grant Nappear (the kings play by play guy) was on the radio doing his postgame show and he announced the plays realtime. the first 3, he was just as excited as everybody else because that shot was insane. but the 2nd one? he fuckin deadpanned the 2nd one “kobe shoots a three, its good, the lakers have won the division” it was SOOOOOOOOOO monotone you woulda thought somebody died. then people call in for the next 2 hours just sad as hell about the shot the lakers and everything else.

such a cold blooded shot. i hate kobe, but that shot, and the four point play in the olympics will always earn my respect.

I was working at Staples Center when this went down. Still remember the standing ovations he’d receive when he’d show up for a game in the second half after flying in from Colorado. Thunderous doesn’t even begin to describe it. I love that man. LA will always love that man.